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Mugabe threatens to arrest rivals

Jun 16 2008

Mugabe threatens to arrest rivals

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Arab World

By Agencies

Tsvangirai has been detained several times in the run up to the presidential run-off on June 27 [AFP]
Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, has threatened to arrest leaders of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for "provoking violence".

Mugabe delivered the warning on Monday, ahead of a June 27 presidential election run-off.

"We are warning them [the MDC leaders] that we will not hesitate to arrest them and we will do that in broad daylight," Mugabe said at a campaign rally in Kadoma, 130km south of Harare, the capital.

"Sooner rather than later we are going to accuse the MDC and the party leadership of being liable and responsible for those crimes of violence," he said.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC and Mugabe's rival in the presidential run-off, has already been detained several times in recent days.

MDC charge

An MDC spokesman responded by throwing the charge of reposnsibility for the violence back at the president.

"He is the one who has gone about threatening to go back to war if he loses," Nelson Chamisa said. "So while he is accusing us of violence, he is responsible."

Though Mugabe blames the opposition for the upsurge in violence, the UN has said the president's supporters are to blame for the bulk of it.

The MDC says more than 60 of its supporters have been killed in a campaign of intimidation since the first-round election on March 29.

Tsvangirai won the first round presidential poll but did not win enough votes for an outright victory, forcing the run-off.

No show

Also on Monday, the secretary-general of the MDC - the party's number 2 - continued to be held in the notoriously harsh police jail in western Harare, his lawyer said.

Tendai Biti did not make a scheduled appearance in court on Monday on treason allegations. Biti had yet to be asked by police to make a formal written "warned and cautioned" statement, needed before he can be arraigned, lawyer Lewis Uriri.

Uriri said if Biti was not brought to court, the case would be taken to the high court again to request it to order an end to delays that are keeping Biti in the Matapi police jail in the western township of Mbare.